The Orphan
by H0H1
Summary: A story depicting how Phi managed to SHIFT to the "Force Quit" box timeline. Phi wakes up during the Decision Game to find both Sigma and Diana dead. Under the manipulation of Zero, she is forced to slowly discover the whole truth behind the game...


**Title:** The orphan

 **Rating:** T

 **Characters:** Phi (protagonist), Sigma, Diana. The C-Team, Mira and Delta will appear briefly later on.

 **Expected length:** 6 Chapters with a total of around 10000 words

 **Warning:** Explicit murder scene. Spoiler for Zero Time Dilemma and, by extension, Virtue's Last Reward. Poor writing from a non-native English speaker.

 **A/N:** I just want to give Phi more screentime that she deserves while tying up the loose ends of some bad ends. The story is written from Phi's perspective when she SHIFTs throughout the timelines before reaching the Golden Ending. Some new timelines may be created, but they'll follow the canon.

My depiction might be too melodramatic for a girl as level-headed as Phi, but I also believe that she's much more emotional than she might be like initially.

Also, my primary motivation to write such a long chunk of text comes from the fact that I'm learning German. Out of a lack of topics to write, I've decided to write down whatever coming to my mind, and the result is this… I'd be very grateful if you could help me correct my German version here:

* * *

 **Dramatic irony**

 _"That's all I needed to hear from you, Sigma. Thank you. And Diana, you can't blame yourself. No matter what. You made the right decision. It's weird, but... I feel like we'll see each other again. So I'm not going to say good-bye. I want the two of you... to keep on living. I love you..."_

* * *

Ugh… my head… it hurts…

I wake up. I must be in the lounge.

I check my watch. It reads 00:03.

"So… it's New Year now, huh. Quite meaningful to be trapped here when a new year begins. Oh, and trapped together with an old man like you, Sigma…"

Wait. Where's Sigma? And Diana too? I looked around, but they are nowhere to be found.

They must be searching somewhere else. How considerate they are to leave a girl like me in this lobby. They may be even making out while dumping me alone…

…Holy...! Among all images, the one that comes to my mind is this? I need some brain bleach. Being trapped in an underground shelter for over half a day must have driven me crazy. Who knows, that thought might be Freudian, something like Oedipus complex…

Wait, wait, wait. Now I'm jumping to conclusions way too quickly.

Whatever. Sitting here won't do anything. I'd better go and search for them before even more unsettling thoughts pop up in my mind.

The Prep Room, the Decontamination Room, the Healing Room, the Locker Room, the Trash Disposal Room, the Transporter Room, the Manufacturing Room… no luck. I've checked every room in Ward D, and I couldn't spot even a single hair they'd left.

If they're playing some kind of mischievous shenanigans, then they'd better confess it to me now…!

"Now announcing… the current casualties…" A female metallic voice rings in the room.

C-Team: Carlos

Q-Team: Q, Mira, Eric

D-Team: Diana, Sigma

These six are now deceased.

The X-Door has been opened… and subsequently closed. The successful escapees are… Akane Kurashiki and Jumpei Tenmyouji. The Decision Game has now been concluded.

Thank you for participating."

If I'm to compare my mind to a PC, then what I am undergoing is equivalent to a Java program processing a recursive call indefinitely before the whole computer decides to switch to a blue screen and display the message "StackOverflowException."

I need to think.

The whole Q-Team are goners. There's no doubt about it, since Diana voted for Q-Team during the 13:30 vote.

Carlos is dead. Maybe they got into a conflict or something? If Diana and Sigma died before Carlos, then C-Team needs to kill only one more person in order to escape. Akane and Junpei are lovers on plain sight… it sounds reasonable to assume that they did whatever they needed to Carlos to escape.

But the question still remains: why are Sigma and Diana dead in the first place?

Maybe they aren't dead, just hidden somewhere, but I've already turned the whole ward inside-out without finding their traces. I'm not an optimist.

The last thing I remember is the 13:30 vote. We could've woken up several times, only to have our memories wiped out with the amnesiac drug injected to us every 90 minutes. There's only one plausible conclusion.

I killed them.

There cannot be any killer apart from us three. This contradicts what Zero said, that our wards are completely confined.

Besides, if the killer is from the C-Team, then why don't they kill me also and kill Carlos instead? It only makes things more complicated than necessary.

Maybe Zero is the killer, but this makes no sense. Why wouldn't he kill them directly when he captured us and wait till now?

If the killer is either Sigma or Diana – not that I think they'd do anything like that – then that means the killer must have committed suicide. Maybe they killed each other, but I know they aren't that type of persons. This is as sensible as two asteroids colliding with each other at space, giving off a meteor storm, only to leave the Earth unscathed.

Therefore, I must've killed them. I have a killer instinct. I won't hesitate to kill someone for my own profits. I could've killed them for the X-Passes.

How despicable I am to commit such atrocities to my best two pals. I'm nothing, right? I'm just an orphan who had that luck to be picked up by two random researchers. Diana and Sigma are different. Diana's a nurse who not only saves but blesses the lives of so many patients, and Sigma's even a researcher who's spent 45 years just to save 6 billion people – the 67-year-old Sigma mind-travelled back in time to his 22-year-body right here with the aim of foiling Zero's plan to kill 6 billion people.

So how could I deprive them of their right to live just to ensure the survival of a wretch like me?

I might as well kill myself now, for there's no hope escaping anymore. Junpei and Akane abandoned me. They won't be coming back to save me.

It's questionable whether this can absolve my sin, though. For an immaterial girl like me to murder two great people… I don't deserve their forgiveness. I don't even deserve the love they gave me before.

"Given the circumstances you are facing, I guess your thoughts are quite… melodramatic. If there's someone who knows you the best, Phi, it's me." It's another voice, but this time, it's a male one. He's Zero, the one who trapped all of us here.

"What I've said may have caused you some confusion, but be reassured that you'll understand my rationales soon."

"Notice the translucent jar at the center of the room?"

There is indeed a jar large enough to hold a child inside. It is more "opaque" than "translucent," with the content inside protected by a wall of glass almost 10 centimeters thick, almost as if it's a museum display holding a magnificent Tunisian Diamond. What's inside is not a diamond, however. There are two balls, one red and the other blue, at the ends of a U-shaped tube. A panel with two buttons, also one red and the other blue, are nailed on the wall.

"This is a bomb. Once the two balls in the jar collide with each other, an explosion large enough to blow away the door in the decontamination room will be triggered. The panel you see is used to control the countdown time of the bomb."

"What you're going to do now is your own decision. I look forward to seeing you again…"

If I were in my normal state, I would probably rant about that senile, manipulative again, wondering whether his perverted hobby to "stack-overflow" others was inherited.

But at that time, my only thought is whether I should escape or not. I'm a murderer, after all. Ethical issues aside, does releasing a murderer like me bring any benefit to the society? Nope.

I might have lost myself to kill Sigma and Diana earlier, but I won't allow myself to lose myself again. Not when this can only save myself…

… or not. Where's Gab, anyway? That dog's innocent. No matter what, he doesn't deserve to die.

I have my plan now. I'll move the bomb to the Decontamination Room, fetch Gab, let it explode, take Gab to the surface, and then confess my crime.

Let's move the bomb to the Decontamination Room first.

It's heavy as if it's made of lead. I bet this is supposed to be lifted by a strong man like Sigma, but… well, I killed him.

No sooner do I enter the Lounge again, when I'm focusing the entirety of my mind into that colossal junk, when Gab the shaggy dog barks.

He diverts my attention, and as a result, I inadvertently drop the jar. It rolls sideways. When the panel on the jar turns to the ground, I hear the sound of a valve opening. The balls in the jar are released as the jar keeps rolling. Within seconds, they'll hit each other to trigger an explosion large enough to blow off the whole Lounge.

That's quite a fitting end for me indeed.


End file.
